Possessions review 2005

Scope of review

Network Rail needs to restrict access to the network to carry out many of its maintenance and renewals activities. These restrictions of access are referred to as possessions or, in cases with very long durations, blockades. Possessions are considered to be ‘disruptive’ if they impact on the running of passenger or freight operators’ normal timetabled services. Schedule 4 of franchised passenger operators’ track access contracts provides for arrangements under which Network Rail pays compensation to train operators when it takes possession of the network to carry out engineering work.

At the time of the access charges review 2003 (ACR2003) final conclusions ORR was aware that Network Rail was considering moving towards a more radical possessions strategy in a way that could potentially lead to greater efficiency savings than the 31% unit cost efficiencies assumed under the review. However, ORR did not include an estimate of the additional productivity that such a strategy might deliver because the information required to conduct a detailed assessment of the approach was not available at that time. Instead, the ACR2003 final conclusions provided for a possessions review to be undertaken if Network Rail proposed to change materially its possessions strategy.  

During the early part of CP3 Network Rail was seeking to implement a revised approach to possessions planning (which it called Efficient Engineering Access (EEA)).  The concept of  EEA included taking longer night-time possessions together with more mid-week blockades. Network Rail believed that this would result in a reduction in the overall resources (in terms of plant and labour) required to deliver a given amount of work and would also lead to a reduction in the unit cost of deploying people and an improvement in work quality. However, no overall industry economic analysis accounting for all costs and benefits was available.

In March 2005 ORR initiated a possessions review which aimed to address key issues as follows

  • an assessment of whether Network Rail’s revised possessions strategy was efficient from a whole-industry perspective and hence was compliant with Condition 7 of Network Rail’s network licence;
  • Network Rail’s processes for planning and mitigating the impact of possessions such as the provision of accurate and timely information on capability and capacity of alternative routes;
  • the extent to which EEA would generate efficiencies in excess of those assumed by ACR2003 and the corresponding amount by which access charges should be reduced to reflect those efficiencies;
  • whether the existing Schedule 4 regime in franchised passenger train operators’ track access agreements might need to be modified to ensure the compensation payable by Network Rail properly reflected the effects of the revised strategy on train operators’ businesses;
  • the impact of EEA on freight operating companies; and
  • the need for cross-industry cooperation in possessions planning.

Timescales

The review started formally with the publication of “The possessions review: initial consultation document” on 24 March 2005. We hosted an industry seminar in May 2005, at which it was agreed that the entire question of a future possessions strategy extended well beyond the originally envisaged scope of our review. In particular it was essential to develop the whole industry understanding of costs and benefits and ensure that the effect of engineering works upon the businesses of Network Rail’s customers was fully understood. 

It was therefore decided that a whole-industry review was the appropriate means of progressing the issues. An industry possessions review steering group was established under the management of ATOC, and three sub-groups focused on (a) improving the utilisation and effectiveness of engineering access (b) engineering planning processes and (c) ways of improving the measurement and monitoring of possessions.

Papers from the industry possessions review steering group have not been published but one of the key initiatives to emerge from the industry review was Network Rail’s proposal to develop the 7 day railway concept. This work informed our 2008 periodic review determination. Key aspects included the identification of specific funding for investments that will improve network availability (such as bi-directional signalling, revised electrical sectioning and enhanced access points). ORR also developed new metrics for network availability and set a target for an improvement in passenger availability over Control Period 4.  

Documentation 

The following documents are available for download as PDF files:

24 Mar 2005

The possessions review: initial consultation document
- (Press notice) 

 Responses

Last updated: 13 November 2009